Our trip in pictures:

Here's a photo tour of our trip. :)

Tula graciously lent us her van for our trip... ;)

This is in Cadaques on the Costa Brava north of Barcelona. Getting from here to the French boarder was one of the narrowest and windiest roads I've even been on... that's saying a lot seeing as how I grew up on Hwy 96 in NorCal! Glad my car sick days are over or this would have been NO fun.

The surprise visit to Port de la Selva to visit Noelia. :)

Le petit-déjeuner (breakfast...) and our daily bread for sandwiches. Here I bought a mini quiche for breakfast and the woman at the bakery actually made pig noises trying to explain that it had ham in it! We all got a good laugh out of that...and some of the more stern French customers were giving her shocked looks.

This is dinner on the front porch...not a good shot of the spread, but also nothing very exciting to see: sandwiches, salad, bread and cheese.

The bridge at Avignon.

"On the bridge of Avignon, they are dancing they are dancing..." You had to pay to go out onto the bridge or I would have done a little dance for your viewing pleasure. ;) I learned and played that song on autoharp in 3rd grade at Junction Elem.

The Pope's Palace in Avignon.

A. fixing dinner. Here you can see our faithful van, "Lupita" and our little blue tent. This was the night we ended up "sleeping" in the van because there was a terrible thunderstorm. It was a beautiful campground, the most beautiful of the ones we stayed in, but in the middle of NOWHERE and we were camped right by a creek...Angelines thought for sure we'd be flooded out by morning.

...Just another pretty town from the road (hence the blur).

These are the views from our room in Rivolet, the town outside Lyon where we spent three nights.

My best friend, Miriam, sister of the groom. It seems we have a picture like this one nearly every year since sophomore prom! ;)

Angelines, Laura (mother of the groom) and me at the reception.

Self-portrait in the courtyard and Manoir de la Garde.

This is a video of the little town where we stopped for breakfast the night after the thunderstorms. It's the one that reminds me of Beauty and the Beast... Can't you just imagine Disney characters popping out of the windows and Belle singing: "There must be more than this provincial life..."??? :)

Wedding Joy

I'm just gonna make this a short(ish) post. I wanted to write a little bit about the wedding since my last post was just about our whirlwind trip to Lyon. If you recall the whole purpose of the trip was going to my best friend's brother's

wedding. :)

The wedding was a traditional Jewish ceremony

in the old synagogue in Lyon. My only knowledge of Jewish weddings came from Fiddler on the Roof--I remember being shocked in the movie when the groom stomps a wine glass. Ethan crushed the glass on the first try. :) Good job.

The bride and groom were both radiant. They get married under a tent-like structure where the alter would be in a church, surrounded by their families. Although I couldn't understand the service (mostly French and Hebrew though the rabbi did say a few lines in English), it was fun to see the different traditions. None of it was too different really from weddings here in Spain:

various traditions and customs, but all focused on the health and happiness of the newly weds. In the end, I guess all weddings, regardless of how they're celebrated, really are the same at heart.

The reception was at a beautiful old chateau (I think you'd call it that) from the 1600's! It was a fantastic local, preserving it's heritage while being modernized just enough to be quite fancy. It was all very elegant. Views from the courtyard of the tiny town below and a castle on the opposing hill--completely fairy tale. What really blew me away was the plaque at the entrance (huge stone wall and iron gate) that read: "private historic monument"... Only in Europe!

Dinner was held in a big room that was once where they crushed grapes to make wine. The ceiling beams were awesome. The huge press was still there, though kind of hidden behind the DJ's set-up. The food was wonderful, but the desserts were absolutely amazing. I've somehow lost my sweet tooth living in Spain, but I tried about 50% of the dessert buffet (seriously...there were so many different things!) and the rest was a feast for the eyes. ;) At this point my camera battery had died (typical!) so there are no pictures... Luckily I did get a shot of the wedding "cake": a castle made of peanut brittle and filled with cream puffs! It even had fireworks!

All of it was beautiful. The bride and groom were so obviously in love. :) We weren't able to partake in much of the merry-making after dinner was served because by the time dessert was finished it was about 1am. We left at about 2:30am because the following day was our long haul back to Barcelona. Still, in the time we were there, we saw enough to be able to extrapolate about all the fun everyone else had until sunrise!!

Here's a little video clip of some of the celebrating...there was no ballroom slow dancing, this was hard-core party! I didn't get a video of Ethan (groom) or Chris (father of the groom) body surfing, but that happened too. There was also lots of circular dancing that was much more like stomping and a "dance" that reminded me of when my sister and I would hold hands in the back yard, lean back and spin as fast as we could. Some how these guys didn't fall over (Emily and I always did!) and this was after quite a few drinks I assure you. ;) I really was sorry to have to leave so early. It always happens that just as I'm getting warmed up, my second wind, we have to leave!

Enjoy the video!

Exhausted and Relieved!

I'm finished with my first year back at school!

My exams, as I'd prayed, went far better than they should have given my lack of preparation. Of course grades have yet to be published, but I'm sure that I passed them all. At least two of them I might have even done reasonably well on (80% or so). We shall see--another week or so before grades are published.

I got up early Friday and caught the train to Sevilla. It seems after our great experience with French public transport I'm all about trains now that we're back! ;) This way I didn't leave Angelines car-less, just in case. Anyway, I had two exams Friday and then today there were three: 8:30am, 11am and 4:30pm. Phew!

I was particularly worried about the last one (Conocimiento del medio social y cultural--social studies) because not only was it the last test of the day, but it covered LOADS of material: geography of the Iberian Peninsula, climates of the IP, weather and space, a little bit of econ. and politics, plus history of Spain from prehistoric times to the present day (no joke)! It was just a little intimidating, but went MUCH better than I expected.

I stayed the night with a friend of ours from the pueblo who lives in Sevilla capital so it was nice to get a chance to visit some between cramming and her work schedule. ;)

Most of all I'm just terribly relieved to be done! It's been torture since all my work commitments ended at the beginning of June to continue studying... Not at all an easy task, let me tell you. I probably complain far more that is normal or necessary, but there's just something wrong (on a psychological level) about studying and taking finals in July! That's mid-summer for God's sake!! We're supposed to be lounging on the beach or on couches in air-conditioned homes...not writing final papers or reviewing notes and cramming for finals! Whatever happened to the swimming pool?!

...Okay, I'm a baby.

But I'm done. One year down and three to go! :)

Southern France on a Shoestring:

A quick Google search will prove that a French shoestring costs quite a bit more than most travelers realize. I'm still licking my wounds after spending 55 euros on toll roads (it would have been 100+ had we driven them to and from Lyon) and drinking the most expensive café au lait of my life: 5 euros! (that's five times what it costs here in La Roda...even in Madrid you'd be hard pressed to find a cafe con leche worth 3!).

...But I'm getting ahead of myself, I don't think you know that we were in France this past week! My best friend's brother married a lovely French girl and we went to the wedding in Lyon.

Our trip began at the Malaga airport where Angelines realized we had forgotten to pack our drivers licenses... (oops!) In Barcelona we had a car rented to drive to the wedding! Thankfully we have wonderful friends who bailed us out and even lent us their car, saving us 200 euros on the rental! (thank you Montse and Monica) We stayed the first night at their house awaiting an express envelope from La Roda with our licenses (thank you Nuria). So we started our trip a day and a half late, but feeling quite lucky to have such wonderful friends!

Given that we took the scenic route to Lyon, things when much more slowly than anticipated. Unfortunately, all our driving time took up most of each day and we just barely had time to find a campground each day, eat dinner and relax some (most of the campgrounds have swimming pools!) and go to bed in order to get up and drive some more! Camping was part of our plan to save money...but any money saved by camping was spent twice over on our daily cervecita and coffees. It wasn't at all what I had planned, but I'm focusing on the good things: visiting friends and spending time with my Angelines.

Aside from getting to visit with our friends in Barcelona and of course with all the groom's family in Lyon, we made a surprise visit to a friend from here in La Roda who is working through the summer at a cafe in Port de la Selva, Girona (north of Barcelona and very near the French boarder). She was SOOOO happy to see us. We stayed our first night at a campground nearby and were able to spend an hour or so chatting over ice cream as we strolled along the beach.

Southern France is gorgeous and the area north of Lyon where the wedding reception was held was absolutely amazing. Angelines and I stayed in a little rural hotel in a tiny little town near the site of the reception for the three days we were in Lyon. It was a quaint old building from the 1800's with views of the flower-lined streets and the church steeple--just exactly what you think of when you think of small European villages.

We drove by so many beautiful towns and villages nestled into the rolling green countryside. The entire area was riddled with them--little pockets of golden stone buildings with pointed, slate turrets of castles and church steeples peeking out of each one. It's a shame we had so little time to see things...but I suppose there's always the possibility of a next time.

Avignon was one of our only tourist stops. We explored the Pope's Palace (although we didn't buy entry tickets) and got pictures of the bridge at Avingon. Do you know the song? ;) Somehow we stumbled upon a Spanish bar for our daily beer and wine! They had the menu set out on the street listing "les tapas" (hahaha) and inviting passersby to explore the flavors of the regions of Spain. ;) It was pure coincidence that we happened to have our cerveza there, I swear.

On Friday morning, after a horrible night of thunderstorms (A was so worried about flooding being camped right near a creek that we spent the night squished into the back of our friends' van--needless to say we didn't sleep much!) we were able to do a bit more exploring. We camped near the tiny medieval village, Mirmande. It reminded me of Belle's hometown in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." It was full of tiny winding cobbled streets and stone houses dating from the 1600's. Of course we were only able to explore as long as it took us to eat our croissants, but still it was nice to get another little taste of tourism.

I was pleased with my French. Thanks to Maggie and my trip to Belgium, I was definitely able to communicate. I also was pleased to find that it is indeed a myth about French people being so stuck up that they will refuse to speak to you in English...or refuse to speak to you if you don't have perfect French. Everyone seemed grateful at my attempts to speak their language (which were really much more like butchering it and then mixing it up with Spanish), and I found that many people knew enough English (and were willing to speak it) that we had very little problems navigating when lost, finding our tiny village with the hotel or working out train schedules to and from Lyon.

Our vacation was indeed an adventure. We went to France the old fashioned way: with a road map and asking directions. No GPS for us. Angelines drove most of the way and I was the navigator--a perfect team given that I get more nervous in traffic than she does, and she's not very good at reading road signs or maps! :) We only got lost once, in Lyon...traffic there is INSANE. Thank God we figured out the train schedule for the wedding day. I was quite impressed by the efficient and cheap (surprisingly enough) public transportation.

Now we're back in La Roda and I have my exams tomorrow and Saturday. Wish me luck. Once again, I feel horribly unprepared...France didn't lend itself to studying. I'm drinking "tila" for my nerves and just doing my best to remember that all I need to do is pass!